Downtown parking is lost revenue and for a city adjusting to expected budget shortfalls, every quarter is being counted.
In downtown’s game of parking hide and seek, you’ll find yourself negotiating with a street-savvy parking pirate willing to jam a paperclip in your hard earned meter in exchange for a few dollars, with the promise your car is renting the space below the market rate. Then there’s the free parking after 6 p.m. in areas vested in an active nightlife.
A low-tech answer for the loss of city quarters has been simply increasing parking rates in sections of downtown that have a lower risk of meter tampering.
What may be far more effective are the new meters and parking stations now installed around heavily used meter zones, and the city is allowing the Los Angeles Department of Transportation (LADOT) to set some of the rules, as blogdowntown reports.
In parts of South Park, Bunker Hill and the Fashion District, LADOT installed new pay by space parking stations where you can use plastic to buy time. You may need it; new municipal codes allow LADOT to charge for parking beyond 6 p.m.
On 5th Street between Broadway and Hill, solar-powered single-space meters are installed for a one-block trial period, and designed to provide detailed information to those who monitor parking meter use.
No word if the new meters have an alarm system if you dare get near them with a paperclip.
